As of June 2008, I will have been playing for 3 years. I love metal and southern rock, but any type of skillful guitar playing will give me a hard-on, especially classical and shred that actually flows together. I try to learn as many techniques and variations of style as I can to keep myself a diverse player. I would like to think I have pretty adequate skill, but there's always room for improvement, I'm sure everyone feels the same way. I just graduated high school and plan to go to Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville to become a college professor, and take classical guitar classes while I'm enrolled there. I love music theory and learning new techniques but I know absolutely NOTHING about gear, I personally worry about becoming better and when the time comes, the gear thing will gradually come to me. The sweep pick technique is at the moment my greatest enemy, since I never know if I am doing it correctly. Anyways, I'm just an 18 year old guy who loves playing guitar.